Subject: Re: netbsd 2.0 no operating system
To: None <netbsd-users@netbsd.org>
From: None <oliverfuchs@onlinehome.de>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 04/11/2005 05:43:11
On Sat, 09 Apr 2005, Nenad Crnko wrote:

> On Saturday 09 April 2005 05:54, David Laight wrote:
> > On Sat, Apr 09, 2005 at 05:34:26AM -0700, Nenad Crnko wrote:
> > > 
> > > We have missed the opportunity to get the content from wd1 mbr when
> > > your system still failed to boot. It would have been useful to get it
> > > like so:
> > >   # dd if=/dev/wd1d of=/tmp/funny_mbr count=1
> > > or
> > >   # dd if=/dev/wd0d count=1 | hexdump -C
> > > 
> > > It seems that for some reason the sector lost its MBR_MAGIC during
> > > or after installation. If there is a bug in sysinst and you would
> > > like to help tracking it down, you would probably have to repeat your
> > > ordeal a few times to find out and document how to reliably reproduce
> > > the problem.
> > 
> > There is a known bug in installboot that causes it to copy the first
> > 8k of the disk to the start of the partition.
> > This might be the cause.
> > 
> >  David
> > 
> 
> I have not encountered this problem largely because since 1.6 I for
> various reasons usually manually install and set up the new version on
> a secondary disk.
> 
> It is not completly clear what exactly happens with Olivers's installation
> since he does not report precisely enough what happens. But he apparently
> can not get past mbr into boot1.

It is very clear:
I have a running netbsd 1.6.1 on my second harddisk
I wanted to do a fresh install of netbsd 2.0 so I ran sysinst with
"use the whole disk" and "use existing partition sizes"
I then booted directly into harddisk  number 2 (changed the bios boot
parameter to "Boot another device: hd1"
I got the error message: "No operating system found"
Trying to install bootselector on wd0 I get (after setting the bi?s
boot parameter to default again) error message "3".
Partitioning the harddisk number 2 with  FreeBSD sysinstall  I could
install netbsd 1.6.1 again and update it to netbsd 2.0

> 
> But given the fact tha he saw the "No operating system" string, it must have
> come from the mbr without bootselector code. This error message can be triggered,
> as far as I can tell, only by mbr boot code not seing MBR_MAGIC in the same
> sector. So something must be stepping on the offending sector, or
> perhaps sysinst does not put MBR_MAGIC into the mbr in the first place.
> 
> Thank you for your "rototilling" of this code. It is now greatly improved
> since 1.3 and now provides full and unambiguous control during disk maintenance.

What does "rototilling" mean?

Oliver

> 
> 
> Best regards
> Nenad

-- 
... don't touch the bang bang fruit